Thoughts on the creative process, quilting, fabrics, and living life in the Southern U.S.A.

Friday, March 27, 2009

A play day....

Plans for today are all pretty much gone by the wayside...it is raining so I can't work in the garden, the windshield wipers on my new car will not turn on so I can't drive anywhere, and the dishwasher leaked water on the kitchen floor this morning so I am now waiting for the repair guy. Good new though - the coffee pot is working just fine.I played with a new photo editing software this morning. It is called Picnic. It is very fun but be prepared to spend a lot of time playing when you go on it! I took a photo of Brownie and turned it into a pencil sketch. Ya, it is cheating a bit but only if I say I sketched it! I'm just as proud I could figure out the program!This is the original photo of Brownie laying claim to the guest bedroom. First I sharpened the entire photo, then I blurred only the background, then finally, I selected the pencil sketch. Then obviously I did a bit of cropping.

So next step...how could I use this for my quilting? At one point I tried drawing the ink pictures and signatures for my Baltimore album blocks. They didn't come out great. Maybe I could do the pencil technique and ink over it? Or if I printed on a very high quality maybe that would look enough like old ink to call it a day...stay tuned.....

Clever girl you ... I have a photo editing program, but even to USE it, one still has to have some imagination. This is cool!

Our next "artistic word" at Guild is "Mirror." I could use this type technique by taking a photo of ME in the mirror, and manipulating it with whatever options are on my program! Thanks for the idea/inspiration. 8-))

Glad the coffee pot was still working, a morning with that broken down would require going back to bed and hiding under the covers for me. I like what you did with the picture, I will have to check that site out. I'll be watching to see what you come up with for quilting in the future with that software.

Hello! I am a student at the Maryland Institute College of Art and am writing a thesis about quilting and I was wondering if I could interview you. If you are interested you can contact me through my blog (carissa-holly) or by email: carissa_holly@yahoo.comThank you!-Carissa Holly

About Me

AQS certified Quilt Appraiser and lecturer. For over 25 years I have been collecting quilts and making my interpretation of them. I'll try any type of handwork from applique through red-work to piecing.